This month, we’re sharing the recipe for our chicken, bacon and leek pie: roast chicken in a creamy, lemony white wine sauce made with homemade stock, baked deep in rough puff pastry.
Serves 10-12
Ingredients
Rough Puff Pastry
• 500g plain flour
• 500g cold unsalted butter, cubed
• 1 tsp fine salt
• 300ml ice-cold water
Filling
• 1 large whole chicken
• Salt and black pepper
• 500g bacon, chopped
• 1 onion, diced (keep the peelings)
• 3 garlic cloves, crushed
• 500ml white wine
• 2 leeks, thinly sliced into rounds (keep the trimmings)
• 500g brown mushrooms, sliced
• About 3 litres cold water (for the stock)
• 1 tbsp cornflour
• 250ml double cream
• Juice of 1 lemon
To finish
• 1 egg, beaten, for glazing
Method
Rough Puff Pastry
1. Make the dough. Mix the flour and salt. Toss in the butter, leaving it in chunks, then bring together
with most of the water into a rough dough. Shape into a rectangle, wrap and chill for 20 minutes.
2. Fold. Roll into a long rectangle, fold in thirds like a letter, then turn 90 degrees. Repeat for four folds in
total, chilling for 20-30 minutes between every two. Keep chilled until needed.
Chicken & Vegetables
1. Roast the chicken. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and roast at 200C until cooked through. Keep the roasting tin with all its juices.
2. Strip the chicken. Take all the meat off the bones and set it aside. Keep the bones for the stock.
3. Brown the bacon. In the roasting tin, cook the bacon until browned.
4. Onion and garlic. Push the bacon to one side, add the onion and garlic and cook until translucent. If the tin gets sticky, deglaze with a splash of the white wine. Lift everything out and set aside.
5. Leeks. Add the leeks to the tin and cook until soft. Set aside with the bacon mix.
6. Mushrooms. Add the mushrooms and cook until soft. Set aside with everything else.
Stock
1. Roast the bones. Put all the chicken bones in the empty tin and roast at 200C for 10 minutes until
browned.
2. Simmer. Put the tin on the hob, add the onion and leek peelings, fill with water and simmer gently for 3
hours until you have a rich brown stock.
3. Strain. Take off the heat and sieve the bones and peelings out of the stock (the liquid gold). Set aside.
Sauce
1. Cook out the wine. Put the empty roasting tin back on the heat. Pour in the rest of the white wine, scraping up the bits from the bottom, and bubble until cooked out and reduced.
2. Thicken. Mix the cornflour with a little cold water to make a runny slurry. Add the stock to the tin, bring to a simmer and whisk in the slurry until it thickens.
3. Finish. Add the double cream and season with salt, pepper and the lemon juice. Simmer until thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.
4. Combine and cool. Take off the heat and stir in the chicken and all the vegetables. Cool completely, ideally overnight.
Assemble & Bake
1. Line the tin. Butter the tin. Cut the pastry into two-thirds and one-third. Roll the larger piece to about
4mm and line the base and sides, leaving a little overhang. Chill while the oven heats to 200C (180C
fan) with a baking tray inside.
2. Fill and lid. Pack in the cold filling. Roll out the lid, brush the rim with egg, lay it on top, then trim and
crimp to seal. Cut a steam hole and brush all over with egg.
3. Bake. Bake on the hot tray at 200C (180C fan) for 25 minutes, then turn down to 180C (160C fan) for
about 45 minutes until deep golden. Cover loosely with foil if it browns too quickly.
4. Rest and serve. Rest in the tin for 20 minutes, then push up the base to release. Slice with a sharp knife.
Tips
• If the stock tastes thin after straining, boil it down for a stronger flavour before thickening.
• The filling must be completely cold before it goes into the pastry, or the base will go soggy.
• Leftover pastry freezes well.
